Tips for grains:
Use 1/3 cup soy grits with every cup of grain
or
Use a milk product with grain.
or
Use 1/3 cup seeds with every cup of grain.
Tips for beans:
Use 1 1/3 c grain to every cup beans.
or
Use a milk product with every dish that is mainly beans.
or
Use 1/2 c seeds to every 1/3 c beans
Tips for peanuts:
Use 1 c seeds for every 3/4 c peanuts
1. Remove the carpet. Even without taking into account some of the nasty things that go into making most carpet in the first place, they are a dust and toxin and…. trap. Wood, tile, or stone can be kept much cleaner, and don’t have the tendency to collect and hold onto everything that comes into your house. If you want to keep the floors (and your feet) a little warmer, you can use throw rugs, the mobility of them getting around the cleaning issue.
2. De-chlorinate the water. Fairly straightforward. Put filters on your taps and on your shower.
3. Insulate. With one of the newer greener variants that don’t outgas.
4. Replace your mattress. Typical foam mattresses are treated with things that are… questionable, and can assist in loading up our toxicity until you find yourself standing on the road to Chemical Sensitivities-ville. There are organic options.
5. Dump the artificials (fragrance, cleaning products, personal care, etc…). There are alternatives in each area. I’ve actually noticed a lessening of my allergic to the world issue just from dealing with the bath products and cleaning supplies, and in most cases, vinegar and water and possibly some safe dishsoap covers my cleaning needs.
6. Bake out the bad stuff. If you can’t replace some of the nastier materials in your home, there are ways to speed up the outgassing of the toxic stuff. Making sure, of course, that you and yours aren’t in the location while doing so.
7. Clear the air in your house by ventilating from time to time. Open some windows, let air circulate, and thus waft out some of the bad and refresh the air.
1. Slay the vampires. Sounds strange, likely, but a lot of things that are left plugged in all the time draw a lot more power than you might think. (TVs, VCRs, etc..) Even just plugging all of that sort of thing into a power strip and turning that off when you aren’t using them can save you (on average) $75 a year.
2. A computer consumes (again, on average) as much energy as 3 100 watt light bulbs. Turn it off when it isn’t in use.
3. Vacuuming your refrigerator coils twice a year increases the appliance’s energy efficiency by quite a bit.
4. Keep your freezer full. A full freezer functions more efficiently and uses less power.
5. Keep your hot water heater set at no more than 120 degrees.
6. Train yourself to turn off lights in rooms when you leave them. This measure alone can cut your energy bill by 5-10 percent. (Again, this is something I’ve seen in practice. Once we managed to make it habitual, the savings were immediately visible.)
Formaldehyde: Aloe Vera, Elephant Ear Philodendron, ficus, golden pothos
benzene: English ivy, peace lily, corn plants
Carbon Monoxide: Golden pothos, Spider Plants
To start with – as little CORN and WHEAT as possible. Much much more necessary for cats than dogs, but as one of the articles I’ve read put it – “When was the last time you saw a cat or dog hunt a loaf of bread?”
Possible ingredient listings: wheat bran, wheat flour, wheat germ meal, wheat mill run, wheat shorts, middlings, wheat red dog, defatted wheat germ meal, corn bran, corn feed meal, cracked corn, ground corn, corn grits, corn flour, hominy feed, maltodextrins… etc…
(Other grains aren’t lovely either, so if you see: barley, grain sorghum, oats, or any kind of screenings, aspirated grain fractions….)
Generally, try to make sure grain is not in the top section of the list of components for what you are feeding your pet. Brewer’s rice is another ingredient to stay away from if possible. Applies for humans, too. This is the small broken grains left over after rice has been processed. No nutritional value, just empty calories. If curious for a lot more data, visit www.petsfortheenvironment.org.
This next bit is fairly disgusting. Stay away from “meat meal.” This means meat has been rendered and dried and than added into the food. That part doesn’t sound too awful. However, meat meal can contain both dead zoo animals AND the corpses of euthanized pets. For me, the concept of feeding my cats and dogs dead cats and dogs is rather enough. However, those corpses still contain amounts of the drugs used to euthanize the animals to begin with, which means the food will as well. Even short term testing has indicated that this is probably not a good idea, but over a lifetime the effects likely snowball. Other things that can be included in meat meal are restaurant grease and supermarket waste.
Due to my research over time into this matter, in a perfect world, I would make the food for them myself…. not having that kind of energy, we make sure that we know what all the ingredients are, what they mean, and why they are included.
Dark-Coloured – Henna, Red Sage, Camellia
Reddish – Paprika, Beet Juice, Red Zinger Tea
Brown – Ginger, Nutmeg, Coffee, Rosemary, Red Sage, Camellia
Light-Coloured – Chamomile, Black tea, Lemon Juice, Mullein
Some of these are just intensification of current, some work as actual dye semi-substitutes.
IT should be noted that all the data here is purely from research. As I am allergic to this herb, I have not been able to experiment with it.
Most of my sources lavender will assist in fighting insomnia. Classically, it has been used inside sachet pillows that you place in or near the one you use, and the aroma helps to bring sleep and to deepen it.
I do suggest care in using this herb on a large scale with children. Lavender has been shown to mimic estrogen, and there is evidence that it can provoke early maturation in girls and increase the femininity of boys. Stay away from toiletry products for children and babies that utilize this as a scent or calming agent. There are other options without the potential hormonal issues.
Mint Family.
Get some sun every day. Ten to fifteen minutes of unprotected sun on the face and arms is enough to manufacture your needed Vitamin D. Use sunscreens or sunblocks that contain titanium or zinc oxide. Stay away from “nano” particles. Keep infants of six months or younger out of the sun, and don’t expose them to any sunscreen. Seek shade between 10 am and 2 pm. Use a broad brimmed hat, and lightweight, loose-fitting, long sleeves. Eat your carotenoids. (The way plants protect from the sun.)
Eggs: 1 tsp baking powder, 1 T water, 1 T white vinegar
Milk: Nondairy pretty much 1 for 1
Wheat: 1 tsp xanthan gum, 1 c alternative flour
Story goes: regular farmer who was approached by God to in order to discover why the time Isidro gave to devotion was lacking. Isidro stated a general lack of time. God commiserated, and then sent an archangel to assist with Isidro’s time crunch. I actually need to look this one up in more detail, I think.